(13-12-2013 08:59 PM)Free Thought Wrote: This is why I don't do physics; just trying to present what I have picked up. Biology is so much easier to properly grasp, can't fully wrap my head around physics.

My primary understanding for the singular point comes from Stephen Hawking:

Quote:Up until the 1920s, everyone thought the universe was essentially static and unchanging in time. Then it was discovered that the universe was expanding. Distant galaxies were moving away from us. This meant they must have been closer together in the past. If we extrapolate back, we find we must have all been on top of each other about 15 billion years ago. This was the Big Bang, the beginning of the universe.

When I heard it, it made sense and after trying to check-up on it, it still made decent sense. His time estimate is be off, but the 'about' indicates a range of time close to that mark.

Mayhap you can throw some easy reading up fer me in my spare time.

I just realised how bad my grammar was in that post... shameful

Meh, my grammar always sucks.

Well your right about it being a singularity, but a singularity isn't necessarily a single point.

If the universe is not infinite in spatial extent, then what Stephen Hawking said is accurate. But if it is infinite, how does a infinite value ever shrink down to a finite size? or rather how does a finite value make it's way up to an infinite value? It can't. Therefore the universe must have always been infinite in size if it is infinite in size right now.

I'll try to find where I read about it in and post a quote. It was either in Brian Greene's book 'The Hidden Reality' or 'The Fabric of The Cosmos'. I'll have to reread some

(07-12-2013 01:47 AM)Heywood Jahblome Wrote: Nothingness consists of no space, no time, no particles, no fields, no force, no laws of nature, no laws of physics, no logic, no mathematical entities, and no consciousness. Nothingness isn't anything....not even a noun. Nothingness is complete negation of existence.

Your definition coincides with that of Lawrance Krauss' in

- no space
- no time
- no particles
- no fields
- no force
- no laws of nature/no laws of physics/mathematical entities
- opposite of something/existence

Krauss did not see it necessary to say nothingness is no logic and no consciousness. Also, he didn't claim that nothingness isn't even a noun/word. That's solely your ridiculous claim right now...

I think HJ is correct on this. I know of at least one review of Krauss' book by another physicist that made the very same point. Krauss' "nothing" is what is termed a quantum vacuum and it most definitely does have electromagnetic waves and particles.

Towards the end of his book Krauss' more-or-less comes clean and admits that he isn't really explaining how the universe emerged from nothing. He also admitted this in an interview in Australia.

Krauss redefining nothing to mean a quantum vacuum is disingenuous and is just defining a problem out of existence. The biological equivalent would be to redefine peptide to include the first self-replicator molecule and then just say the problem of abiogenesis has been solved.

If you aren't prepared to organise a criminal justice system around unsubstantiated beliefs why would you organise your own life around a set of unsubstantiated beliefs?

Your personal beliefs may not hurt anybody but your mentality hurts many people around the world. Do you know what trial by ordeal is? It is a means of determining guilt or innocence not on the basis of evidence and argumentation but instead by the infliction of pain. It is still practised in Africa, e.g. in Liberia.

Is the only thing wrong with trial by ordeal that it hurts people? Otherwise is it a sound method of determining guilt or innocence?

And that is entirely besides the point.
If you aren't prepared to organise a criminal justice system around unsubstantiated beliefs why would you organise your own life around a set of unsubstantiated beliefs?

I don't do that. I do not organize my life around my belief that there are many big bangs. That is why it doesn't hurt anybody including me.

(14-12-2013 07:58 PM)Chippy Wrote: Your personal beliefs may not hurt anybody but your mentality hurts many people around the world.

Really? how?

English is not my native language. that awkward moment between the Premortal Existence and your Resurrection

(13-12-2013 11:47 PM)Chippy Wrote: But to be a justified and true belief it does.

I agree.

Then you agree your belief is not justified. That's nice.

The people closely associated with the namesake of female canines are suffering from a nondescript form of lunacy.
"Anti-environmentalism is like standing in front of a forest and going 'quick kill them they're coming right for us!'" - Jake Farr-Wharton, The Imaginary Friend Show.

If we are to truly understand what is true and what is not true (regarding science, anyway)... we need a method to do that. There is one in place, we call it the scientific method. We use it to develop models of understanding so that the world around us can be understood. Without a way to determine myth from fact, then anything would be speculation. If people adopt speculation, and speculation is not true, then that is harmful because that is not the truth, as it is nothing more than speculation.

Do you care more about what is true, or what sounds good to you?

For one to say, "I believe xyz. I just believe it because I do. I have my own personal reasons. But that harms no one." isn't necessarily true. If one has reasons, and if those reasons are shared with other people who also end up sharing the same belief because of your emphasis, and if that belief is not true, then you have led those people to believe something which is then not true. Would that not be harmful if one is leading people to things which is not true because of a specific belief?

I care more about what is true than what is not true. Sometimes this means reality is not what I want it to be or not what I expect it to be. Sometimes that is unsettling, sometimes I don't like it. However, it is what it is. Above anything else, I value that I can learn more about it. Sometimes the strange and unsettling can lead to more interesting discoveries. It is because of the curiosity to keep asking questions and to keep wondering if there is more to the original answers posted that we learn anything at all. When we become content with things that sound good to us, or things we adopt because they simply feel good, we lose the curiosity to look further.

I think that would be the most dangerous thing of all.

Official ordained minister of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Please pm me with prayer requests to his noodly goodness. Remember, he boiled for your sins and loves you. Carbo Diem! RAmen.